CFP: Fourth International Postgraduate Symposium on Thomas Hardy (3/31/2012; 8/18-26/2012)

Fourth International Postgraduate Symposium on Thomas Hardy, at the 20th International Thomas Hardy Conference & Festival, Dorchester, UK, 18-26 August 2012

Proposals are invited for papers on any aspect of the life, work and thought of Thomas Hardy for the fourth International Postgraduate Symposium on Hardy which will take place in Dorchester, 18-26 August 2012, as part of the 20th International Thomas Hardy Conference & Festival.

Decisions will be made by the Symposium Convenors Professor Roger Ebbatson, Lancaster University, and Dr Angelique Richardson, University of Exeter. Proposals of 250 words (max) for papers of 15-minute duration should be sent to hardy-pgs@exeter.ac.uk by 31 March 2012.

A small bursary will be offered to successful applicants to assist with the cost of attending the conference, and conference fees will be waived. Reduced rates will be offered to postgraduates wishing to attend the conference but not giving papers. This is a unique opportunity to share and debate ideas on Hardy with other new and established scholars. A selection of these papers will be published in the peer-reviewed Thomas Hardy Journal. All attending postgraduates will be expected to join the Thomas Hardy Society at a reduced subscription rate.

Conference delegates (including speakers) are responsible for finding their own accommodation and are advised to do so as soon as possible as accommodation is likely to be scarce in August in view of the Sailing Olympics (29th July to 11 August). Accommodation queries can be directed to Rebecca Welshman, the Thomas Hardy Society Student Representative, University of Exeter, hardy-pgs@exeter.ac.uk

CFP: Gender and Sexual Health: Literary, Cultural, or Historical Comparisons (11/15/2011; 3/29-4/1/2012)

Gender and Sexual Health: Literary, Cultural, or Historical Comparisons
A seminar at the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) conference, Brown University, March 29-April 1, 2012

Seminar organizers: William Spurlin (Brunel University, London), Mattia Marino (Bangor University)

The biomedicalization of gender and sexuality has a long, contested history from the nineteenth through the early twenty-first centuries.  Foucault has spoken of the shift in medical knowledge in the 19th century whereby western medicine was no longer confined to a body of knowledge for curing ills, but became structured around the normal/pathological opposition.   Since then, biomedicine has produced knowledge about gender and sexuality in the name of scientific truth, not without its cultural biases, and its hegemonic status has formed the basis for directing social health policies worldwide, invoking and sustaining racial and class hierarchies, while aligning gender and sexual health with heteronormativity.  The topic is timely, given the pending publication of the new DSM and its continued problematic listings of women’s ‘sexual dysfunctions’ and gender dysphoria in children.

This seminar invites innovative comparative approaches addressing gender and sexual health across a variety of possible borders—national/linguistic, disciplinary (literary, feminist, queer, medical, postcolonial, psychoanalytic studies), and/or textual (oral histories, archives, literary texts, clinical texts, film).

Possible comparisons might include narratives or histories of HIV/AIDS, biomedical pathologizations of women’s sexuality, biomedicalizations of trans and intersexed persons, indigenous ontologies of the body/sexual health, etc.   What role has biomedicine played historically in the colonial regulation of sexuality; what are the consequences in postcolonial contexts today?  What sites of comparison might be viable between biomedicine, law, and/or activism, given that biomedical knowledge is frequently invoked to negotiate legal status, citizenship, and gender/sexual rights?

This seminar is sponsored by the Comparative Gender Studies Committee.

We invite 250-word abstracts (plus a 50-word brief speaker biography) for this seminar.  Your abstract must be submitted via the "Propose a Paper or Seminar" link at the ACLA conference website: http://acla.org/acla2012/?page_id=45.  When you submit your abstract, make sure to designate our seminar (Gender and Sexual Health) so it reaches the seminar organizers directly.  Thank you!

Deadline: November 15, 2011 (5 p.m. EST in the United States)

CFP: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage at DePaul (1/15/2012; 4/30/2012)

DePaul Humanities Center Call for Papers:

Marking the 200th Anniversary of the Publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Cantos 1 and 2

Monda, April 30, 2012

DePaul University, Chicago, IL

Interdisciplinary papers are especially welcome from graduate and post-graduate scholars on Byron and Berlioz or Byron and Turner. Submit abstract to the Humanities Center by January 15, 2012 at this address: aperson@depaul.edu

DePaul Humanities Center

2347 N. Racine Avenue

Chicago, IL 60614

773-325-4580

aperson@depaul.edu

http://www.las.depaul.edu/humanitiescenter

Updated CFP: British Women Writers Conference 2012, (6/7-10/2012)

We have updated the BWWC 2012 CFP to include information for special session coordinators and those who wish to apply to a special session. Please see details below.

Thank you,
BWWC 2012 Conference Committee
Prof. Jill Heydt-Stevenson (director), Kelli T. Jasper (co-chair), Kirstyn Leuner (co-chair)

------

In 2012, the 18th- and 19th-Century British Women Writers Conference (BWWC) will commemorate its 20th anniversary in Boulder, Colorado, by focusing on the theme of “Landmarks.” Rich in both physical and metaphorical significance, landmarks form loci by which we organize history and chart the development of individuals, nations, and cultures. We therefore invite papers that explore how women writers and their texts engage with an ever-changing geography that is both material and abstract. These conference papers should address the people, places, events, and texts that have made their marks on history, and/or the processes and implications of marking, mapping, reading, preserving, overwriting, or erasing. Likewise, we wish to investigate land as space and place, acts and effects of landing or arriving, marks of land upon people and cultures, geographical and imaginative landscapes, liminal no-(wo)man’s-lands, and the state of being landed (or not) with property.

Please send a 500-word abstract to bwwc2012@colorado.edu by January 15, 2012. Papers should address the conference theme and apply it to 18th-century, Romantic, or Victorian texts. See the conference website for more details: www.bwwc2012.com.

Coordinating a Special Session:
If you wish to coordinate a special session relating to the theme of “Landmarks,” please submit a 200-word proposal that describes and provides rationale for your proposed session topic. The Conference Committee will review your proposal and notify you if your session has been approved. We will post approved special sessions under the CFP on the conference website.

By Nov. 25: Submit a 200-word special session topic description to bwwc2012@colorado.edu.
By Dec. 1: The Conference Committee will notify you of acceptance or rejection.

Applying to Participate in a Special Session:
In December, we will post a list of approved special sessions on our website under the CFP. Those wishing to apply to a special session (please apply to only one) should submit two copies of the abstract: one to the session organizer and one to bwwc2012@colorado.edu. On your abstract you must clearly state to which special session you have applied. Those abstracts not accepted to the special session will be returned to the general submission pool for consideration in other panels.
By Jan. 15: Submit 2 copies of your proposal, one to special session organizers and one to the Conference Committee.
By Feb. 15: Special session organizers will notify the Conference Committee about their decisions. Send to: bwwc2012@colorado.edu.
By March 15: We will notify all applicants of acceptance or rejection.

Possible topics include:

• Landmark Events and Ideas: Historical moments; defining milestones; turning points; crises or victories; anniversaries; stages; experiments; memories or visions; aesthetic debates; scientific discoveries; technologies
• Landmark Works: Publication and reception; authorship or readership; emerging genres; histories or chronicles; canon formation; travel writing
• Geographical Land Marks: Historical or tourist sites; borders and national boundaries; high points and burials; property and ownership; memorials, monuments, museums; ruins and traces
• Making Marks: Print culture; media; diaries and personal writings; glosses, annotations, and marginalia; building, development, or enclosure; landscaping and gardening; architecture; fashion and costume design; cosmetics and tattoos; creating space and place; epitaphs, cemeteries, tombs
• Reading, Interpreting, or Imagining Lands/Marks: Physiognomy or phrenology; psychics; reading practices; sciences of navigation; distance and time; fictional worlds
• Mapping/Preserving Marks: Maps and cartography; emblems; classification systems; libraries, museums, collections
• Marks of Land on People: Farming and agriculture; gentility and nobility; industry; food and foodways; defining the local, national, imperial, native, or foreign
• Contested Marks and Marks of Difference: Stealing/transplanting landmarks; marks of faith or creed; religious practices; the supernatural; commerce, currency, credit; ownership; identity politics or marginalization

CFP: The Child in Neo-Victorian Arts and Discourse (special 2012 issue of Neo-Victorian Studies) (1/31/2012)

2012 Special Issue of Neo-Victorian Studies

The Child in Neo-Victorian Arts and Discourse: Renegotiating Nineteenth-Century Concepts of Childhood

Neo-Victorianism has become a major trend in contemporary literature and culture. Novels, motion pictures, documentaries and TV series have all contributed to the persistent re-imagination of the nineteenth century. While neo-Victorianism in fiction and film has sparked off a lively academic industry, its impact on children's literature and contemporary discourses on childhood has not yet been fully addressed. The Victorians were obsessed with the Romantic ideal of the innocent child of nature, an innocence that was thought to be perennially at risk; witness the centrality of the child victim in Victorian melodrama and the astonishing popularity of orphan narratives. Victorian constructions of childhood were also intimately linked to empire. Pauper children were frequently orientalised as 'street Arabs', while the indigenous inhabitants of the colonies were often portrayed as children, imposing
various forms of maternalism and paternalism upon the coloniser. Both pauper children at the metropolitan centre and indigenous children at the outskirts of empire were frequently construed as orphans, even if their parents were still alive. Orphan narratives framed trafficking in children from the outskirts of empire to the centre and vice versa, as pauper children were sent abroad to the settler colonies as cheap labour hands, while 'orphans' in the colonies were removed from their parents in order to be raised at missionary homes or by Anglo-parents who could not conceive themselves.

This special issue of Neo-Victorian Studies will explore how Victorian constructions of childhood are re-mediated and renegotiated in contemporary arts and discourse, from neo-Victorian children's literature and/or fiction featuring children, heritage film and television, the media, social policy making and family politics, to present-day legal frameworks. In particular, how do revisionary fiction and other contemporary cultural discourses for/about children and/or young adults rejuvenate, modify, and assist us in re-thinking the Victorians and associated themes of temporality, cross-generational continuities, and urgent social issues such as child labour, trafficking and paedophilia?

Contributions, both academic articles and creative pieces, are invited on (but not limited to) the following topics:

• rewrites and film adaptations of Victorian children's/young adults' classics and/or child-focused fictions (The Little Princess, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, The Turn of the Screw, etc.)
• re-imaginings of stock child characters from Victorian melodrama and other popular genres (orphans, street Arabs, innocent angels, feral and criminal children, etc.)
• re-inventions of Victorian narrative and dramatic genres for children (e.g. the adventure story, fairytale, moral tract, Bildungsroman, puppet play, and pantomime)
• adaptations of neo-Victorian genres for juvenile audiences (cf. steampunk or graphic novels for children and adolescents)
• continuities/discontinuities between contemporary narratives about adoption and migration and nineteenth-century orphan narratives
• imagined child readers/viewers
• child illness/death; children and medicine
• neo-Victorian vs. neo-Edwardian children's fiction and other art forms
• the child victim in socio-legal and political discourse
• colonial vs. postcolonial representations of the child

Please address enquiries and expressions of interest to the guest editors Claudia Nelson  at claudia_nelson@tamu.edu and Anne Morey at amorey@tamu.edu by 31st January 2012, including a 200 word proposal with draft bibliography and brief biographical details. Completed articles and/or creative pieces will be due 1st April 2012 and should be sent via email to the guest editors, with a copy to neovictorianstudies@swansea.ac.uk. Please consult the NVS website (http://www.neovictorianstudies.com/) for further submission guidelines.

CFP: Tenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities (11/10/2011; 6/14-17/2012)

Tenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Centre Mont-Royal, Montreal, Canada
14-17 June 2012       
http://thehumanities.com/conference/

We are pleased to announce the Call-for-Papers for the Tenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities. The conference and its companion journal provide vibrant, intellectually stimulating spaces for scholars from all geographic and disciplinary areas to learn, converse, and create. The aim is to generate new knowledge about the nature of the humanities, building strongly on the past traditions of the humanities while setting a renewed agenda for the future.

In addition to an impressive line-up of international plenary speakers, the conference will also include paper presentations, roundtable discussions, workshops, and colloquia submitted by practitioners, teachers and researchers. Please refer to the Call-for-Papers for proposal submission guidelines and descriptions of sessions. Presenters may also choose to submit written papers for publication in the fully refereed International Journal of the Humanities. If you are unable to attend the conference in person, virtual registrations are also available which allow you to submit a paper for refereeing and possible publication in this fully refereed academic journal.

We are pleased to be holding the 2012 Humanities Conference in Montreal, home to over a dozen colleges and universities. At the confluence of the French and English traditions, Montreal has developed a unique and distinguished cultural position as Canada's "Culture Capital". Old Montreal is a historic area, containing many different attractions such as the Old Port of Montreal, Place Jacques-Cartier, Montreal City Hall, the Bonsecours Market, Place d'Armes, Pointe-à-Callière Museum, the Notre-Dame de Montreal Basilica, and the Montreal Science Centre. Altogether, there are 51 National Historic Sites of Canada in Montreal, more than any other city in Canada. Landmarks remaining from the 1967 International and Universal Exposition (Expo 67) include the geodesic dome US Pavilion (or Montreal Biosphere), as well as Moshe Safdie's Habitat 67 apartment complex. In 2006 Montreal was named a UNESCO City of Design, only one of three design capitals of the world.

Whether you are a virtual or in-person presenter at this conference, we also encourage you to present on the Humanities Conference YouTube Playlist. Please select the Online Sessions link on the conference website for further details. Additionally, please join our online conversation by subscribing to our monthly email newsletter and subscribing to our Facebook, RSS, or Twitter feeds at http://thehumanities.com.

The deadline for the next round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is 10 November 2011. Future deadlines will be announced on the conference website after this date. Proposals are reviewed within two weeks of submission. Full details of the conference, including an online proposal submission form, may be found on the conference website at http://thehumanities.com/conference/.

Registration open: W.T. Stead: Centenary Conference for a Newspaper Revolutionary (4/16-17/2012)

Registration is now open for W.T. Stead: Centenary Conference for a Newspaper Revolutionary, British Library, 16-17 April 2012.

William Stead died on the Titanic in 1912, the most famous Englishman on board.  One of the inventors of the modern tabloid, his exposé of child prostitution raised the age of consent to 16, yet got him thrown in jail.  This conference, held on the anniversary of Stead's death, examines his influence on the last century of journalism, and looks ahead at how digital technology will shape the next.  Speakers include Laurel Brake, John Durham Peters, Roy Greenslade, Tristram Hunt MP, and Geoffrey Robertson QC.  The full program is here: (https://sites.google.com/site/stead2012/program) or can be downloaded here: (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1htpsjdIvEJMwmZQkkcsA_LB4BSGKNRAWpIXnuKxZb7I/edit?hl=en_US).

Registration is £70 (£60 for postgraduates and over 65s) and includes attendance, refreshments and lunch for both days, and a wine reception on Monday evening sponsored by Gale Cengage.  After 2 January 2012 registration will increase to £85 (£75 postgraduates and over 65s).  Registration is via the British Library shop here: (http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event124192.html).

Further details available on the conference website here: (https://sites.google.com/site/stead2012/).

You can download the conference poster here: (https://sites.google.com/site/stead2012/stead2012.pdf)

CFP: Orality and Literacy (London C19 Studies Seminar) (12/2/2011; 3/17/2012)

The theme for the London Nineteenth-Century Studies Seminar in the Spring term 2012 will be Orality and Literacy, marking the thirtieth anniversary of the appearance of Walter Ong's influential book. Over three days in January, February, and March, speakers will explore a range of issues relating to the interactions between voice and text in the Anglo-American long nineteenth century: philology and acoustic nostalgia, melody and poetic form, laughter, and more.

We are soliciting 20-minute papers on the Seminar theme to form a panel discussion on the extended final day of the Seminar programme, Saturday 17 March 2012.

Please send 300-word proposals to the convenors, James Emmott (Birkbeck) (james@emmott.org) and Tom F. Wright (UEA) (thomas.wright@uea.ac.uk)

Deadline: Friday 2 December 2011

Seminar Programme:
14 January, 11:00-13:00
Herbert Tucker (Virginia)
William Abberley (Exeter)

25 February, 11:00-13:00
Matthew Bevis (Oxford)
Louise Lee (KCL)

17 March, 11:00-17:00
Sandra M. Gustafson (Notre Dame)
Jason Camlot (Concordia)
Panel discussion
James Mussell (Birmingham)

About the London Nineteenth-Century Studies Seminar:
Inaugurated by Birkbeck's Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies in 1987, the Seminar is being organised now by a committee made up of nineteenth-century specialists from the English Departments of the colleges of the University of London. Responsibility for each season of seminars is passed around the group. The Seminar meets at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of
London.

CFP: Victorian Hesitations: Indeterminacy in Language, Art, and Politics (11/15/2011; 5/28-31/2012)

Victorian Studies Association of Ontario/ Assoc. of Canadian College and University Teachers of English - Joint Panel

Fiona Coll and Constance Crompton

Victorian Hesitations: Indeterminacy in Language, Art, and Politics

For knowing his way he is answerable, and therefore [the young artist] must not walk doubtingly … he may pause, but he must not hesitate. - Ruskin, Modern Painters

Lord Hartington's conduct seems to give signs of hesitation. - The Nation, April 1886

The Victorian ethos is often understood to have been based upon action, expansion, and initiative. However, behind all the evidence of Victorian vim and vigour lie traces of equivocation, vacillation, and indecision. From the Crown's factual reluctance to make Cameroon a British protectorate to Lady Bracknell's fictional admonition against irresolution in The Importance of Being Earnest, a concern with hesitation marks the prose and policy of the era. This panel invites papers that explore suspended moments in Victorian culture – moments when a delay, however long, was of real consequence. How did the Victorians understand hesitation? How did they weigh the ethics of equivocation against the virtues of candor? How did their moments of uncertainty manifest themselves in movement? How was the difference between deliberation and doubt calibrated in this age of enterprise?

Papers may focus on, but need not be limited to:

• Anxiety
• Contemplation
• Deliberation
• Doubt
• Dubiety
• Irresolution
• Meditation
• Pause
• Prevarication
• Reconsideration
• Reflection
• Reluctance
• Restriction
• Stillness
• Suspense

Following the instructions on the ACCUTE website (under Conference) for joint association sessions, send your 700-word proposal (or 8-10 page double-spaced paper), a 100-word abstract, a 50-word biographical statement, and the submitter information form (http://www.accute.ca/generalcall.html#submit), to Constance Crompton at VSAOatACCUTE@gmail.com by November 15th.

ACCUTE: http://www.accute.ca/

CFP: Nineteenth International Conference on Learning (11/8/2011; 8/14-16/2012)

Nineteenth International Conference on Learning     
Institute of Education, University of London, London, United Kingdom    
14 - 16 August 2012  
http://www.LearningConference.com

We are pleased to announce the Call-for-Papers for the Nineteenth International Conference on Learning. The Conference and its companion journal provide vibrant, intellectually stimulating spaces for scholars from all geographic and disciplinary areas to learn, converse, and create.  The Learning Conference is for anyone with an interest in, and concern for, education at any of its levels and in any of its forms, from early childhood, to schools, to higher education and lifelong learning, and in any of its sites, from home to school to university to workplace.

We are pleased to host the Learning Conference this year at the Institute of Education at the University of London.  For centuries, London has been a cultural and educational mecca, steeped in tradition and custom.  The discussion of the ever-changing scope of education and its practices is ideally situated this year at the world-renown Institute of Education at the University of London.

In addition to an impressive line-up of international plenary speakers, the conference will also include paper presentations, roundtable discussions, workshops, and colloquia submitted by practitioners, teachers and researchers. Please refer to the Call-for-Papers for proposal submission guidelines and descriptions of sessions.   Presenters may also choose to submit written papers for publication in the fully refereed International Journal of Learning.  If you are unable to attend the conference in person, virtual registrations are also available.

Visit our website for more information about the conference, our submission process and this year's themes, to sign up for our monthly e-newsletter, and to become an active member of our community.  It is all available at: http://www.LearningConference.com

The deadline for the next round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is 8 November 2011. Future deadlines will be announced on the conference website after this date.

Reminder: Taking Liberties: Sex, Pleasure, Coercion (11/1/2011; 6/15-17/2012)

Call for Papers

Taking Liberties: Sex, Pleasure, Coercion (1748-1928)

15-17 June 2012, Newcastle University

Keynote Speakers:

Helen Berry (Newcastle University) on Sex, Marriage and the Castrato

Joseph Bristow (UCLA) on Oscar Wilde’s Sexual Practices

Cora Kaplan (Queen Mary, University of London) on Rape, Representation and Slavery

Richard C. Sha (American University) on Romanticism and the Paradoxes of Free Love

From the publication of John Cleland’s Fanny Hill (1748) to D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928), literature has imaginatively exploited the relationship between freedom, coercion and sexual pleasure, constantly pushing at the boundaries of what it is permissible to describe, represent and perform. At the same time, the history of print, film and theatre censorship has been told as a story of progressive unshackling from constraint. In this narrative, these ever-widening freedoms and challenges have been understood as positively beneficial to individuals and to societies. Yet the idea of sexual liberty as an unqualified good has increasingly come under scrutiny, giving way to the realization that freedom from sexual constraint can sometimes mean imprisonment in new and alternate structures of power, frustration and denial. This international, multidisciplinary conference seeks to complicate and enrich our understanding of the relation between sex, pleasure and coercion in a liberal context. It will explore the many ways in which literary and visual texts and performances can be understood to create, reinforce, question and/or dissolve these structures, as well as interrogate the complicity of publishing and the law in their framing and dismantling.

Key conference questions are:

• How are the complex relations between sexual licence, pleasure and coercion understood, represented and negotiated during the long nineteenth century?
• How did censorship and obscenity laws shape the literary/cinematic/theatrical landscape?
• How were sexually controversial texts – from erotica to triple-decker novels, from peep-shows to West-End theatre – produced, circulated, preserved and consumed?

We are interested in literary and visual texts/performances from across the cultural spectrum. We welcome papers from English, Drama, Film & Visual Culture, History, Law, Modern Languages, Sociology and Geography.

Possible topics include:

• Sex, Sexuality and the Law
• Gender and the Law
• Obscenity/Pornography
• Censorship
• Rakes/Dandies/Mollies
• Prostitutes/Madams/Pimps
• Rape/Sexual Violence
• Sex on Stage/Screen
• Sex Manuals/Diaries
• ‘Lewd’ Behaviour
• The Politics of Pleasure
• Flirtation, Seduction, Exploitation
• Corrupting the Innocent
• Voyeurism/Striptease/Burlesque
• ‘Dirty’ Books
• Bowdlerization
• Advertising Sex/Abortion/Contraception
• Sexual Initiations
• Sadomasochism/Masters and Slaves
• Tyranny and Slavery

Proposals of up to 300 words should be emailed by 1 November 2011 to TakingLiberties@ncl.ac.uk. Other inquiries should be directed to Dr Ella Dzelzainis at ella.dzelzainis@ncl.ac.uk.

The conference is organized at Newcastle University by the Long Nineteenth Century Research Group (School of English), with the support of the Gender Research Group and the Newcastle Institute for the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities.

Deadline Extension: Curran Fellowship, final call for proposals (10/17/2011)

The Curran Fellowship deadline has been extended to Monday, October 17.

The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) is pleased to announce the competition for the fourth annual Curran Fellowship, a travel and research grant intended to aid scholars studying 19th-century British magazines and newspapers in making use of primary print and archival sources. Made possible through the generosity of Eileen Curran, Professor Emerita of English, Colby College, and inspired by her pioneering research on Victorian periodicals, the Curran Fellowship is awarded annually in the form of two grants of $2,500 each.

The projected research may involve study of any aspects of the periodical press in any of its manifold forms, and may range from within Britain itself to the many countries, within and outside of the Empire,
where British magazines and newspapers were bought, sold, and read during “the long nineteenth century” (ca. 1780-1914).

Applications for the Curran Fellowship for research to be undertaken in 2012 must be submitted in electronic form and sent to curranfellowship@rs4vp.org by October 17, 2011. Applicants should send a c.v., the names and contact information of two scholars who are familiar with the applicant and his or her research goals, and a description of the project to which these funds would be applied. Any queries about the application may be sent to the same address.

Applicants will be notified by January 15, 2012. Successful applicants will be required to submit a brief report to RSVP at the conclusion of the funded portion of their project, describing the results of their research, and are asked to acknowledge the fellowship in any published work based on that research.

The full call for applications may be found on the RSVP website at http://www.rs4vp.org/prizes.html.
A set of additional guidelines for applicants may be found at http://www.rs4vp.org/curran_fellowship_guidelines.pdf.

Final notice: 2012 International Conference on Narrative (10/17/2011; 3/15-17/2012)

2012 International Conference on Narrative, March 15-17
Harrah’s Las Vegas Hotel and Casino Las Vegas, Nevada

Plenary Speakers
Steven Mailloux, Loyola Marymount University
Ramón Saldívar, Stanford University
Vanessa Schwartz, University of Southern California

Contemporary Narrative Theory Session Speakers
Heather Dubrow, Fordham University
Margaret Homans, Yale University
Deirdre McCloskey, University of Illinois Chicago
Mark McGurl, UCLA
Alan Nadel, University of Kentucky
Peggy Phelan, Stanford University

Conference Coordinators
Eddie Maloney, Alan Nadel, James Phelan, Robyn Warhol

Call for Papers
We welcome proposals for papers and panels on all aspects of narrative in any genre, period, discipline, language, and medium.

Proposals for Individual Papers
Please provide the title and a 300-word abstract of the paper you are proposing; your name, institutional affiliation, and email address; and a brief statement (no more than 100 words) about your work and your publications.

Proposals for Panels
Please provide a 700-word (maximum) description of the topic of the panel and of each panelist’s contribution; the title of the panel and the titles of the individual papers; and for each participant the name, institutional affiliation, email address, and a brief statement (no more than 100 words) about the person’s work and publications. Please send proposals by email in PDF, Word, or WordPerfect to: narrative@georgetown.edu.

Deadline for Receipt of Proposals:  Monday, October 17, 2011

All participants must join the International Society for the Study of Narrative. For more information on the ISSN, please visit: http://narrative.georgetown.edu/.

Final notice: Gale Dissertation Research Fellowship (10/17/2011)

The deadline for the Gale Fellowship has been extended to Monday, October 17, 2011.

Gale Dissertation Research Fellowship in Nineteenth-Century Media:
 The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) is pleased to announce the third annual Gale Dissertation Research Fellowship, made possible by the generosity of publisher Gale, part of Cengage Learning, in support of dissertation research that makes substantial use of full-text digitized collections of 19th-century British magazines and newspapers. A prize of $1500 will be awarded, together with one year's passworded subscription to selected digital collections from Gale, including 19th Century UK Periodicals and 19th Century British Library Newspapers.

Purpose: The purpose of the Gale Dissertation Research Fellowship is two-fold: (1) to support historical and literary research that deepens our understanding of the 19th-century British press in all its rich variety, and (2) to encourage the scholarly use of collections of full-text digital facsimiles of these primary sources in aid of that research.

Eligibility: Eligible for this award is any currently enrolled postgraduate student, in any academic discipline, who by the end of 2011 will have embarked on a doctoral dissertation or thesis that centrally involves investigation into one or more aspects of the British magazine and newspaper press of the 19th century. Preference will be given to projects that are interdisciplinary in approach, and that propose to use innovative methods of exploration that are uniquely possible with online collections. The digitized collections used in this research may include those created by any publishers or projects, whether commercial or non-commercial.

Applications: Applicants should send a c.v. and the names and contact information of two scholars who are familiar with the applicant and his or her dissertation project; it is expected that one of these will be the student's dissertation director. The project description (approx. 500-800 words) should concisely explain the aims of the proposed research and the key importance of the role of full-text digitized collections in that research. Applications for the Gale Fellowship for dissertation research to be undertaken in 2012 must be submitted in electronic form and sent to galefellowship@rs4vp.org by October 17, 2011. Any queries about the application may be sent to the same address. Applicants will be notified in January. The successful applicant will be expected to submit a brief report to RSVP at the conclusion of the funded portion of the project, describing the results  of the research.

For more information and news about the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, please visit its webpage at www.rs4vp.org.

CFP: Behind the Sherlockian Screen (11/1/2011; 8/31-9/3/2012)

“Behind the Sherlockian Screen,” co-sponsored by The School of Theater, Film and Television, UCLA, and The Baker Street Irregulars

Abstract Deadline: November 1, 2011
Submission Deadline: March 1, 2012

Date & Time: Program commences on the evening of Friday, August 31, 2012, and ends on the morning of Monday, September 3, 2012

Location: Melnitz Theater, UCLA, Westwood, California

Event Description:
This academic conference will examine the historical and technical aspects of the 200+ Sherlock Holmes films and television programming. It will consider the history of such films and the principal actors, writers, and directors; it will also consider the craft of making these and other period films, including screenwriting, costume and set design, locations, directing, and producing. Speakers will be persons with academic or practical experience in the relevant fields, including renowned Victorian and film historians, archivists, screenwriters, costume and set designers, directors, and producers, as well as amateur Sherlockian scholars. The conference will include numerous film clips and rare films; however, the program is not intended as a “film festival.” It is expected that the conference will be attended by academics, students, and professionals working in the field as well as avid fans and Sherlockians from around the world.

Paper Requirements (topic):
Submissions are invited on any topic relevant to the event. Suggestions and examples include:

• Biographical papers on prominent actors, directors, or screenwriters involved in filming Sherlock Holmes
• Common themes in the stories filmed
• Sherlock Holmes as propaganda
• The depiction of women in Sherlock Holmes films
• Period costuming and its problems
• Anachronisms in Sherlock Holmes films
• Rediscovering lost classics; searching for lost films
• How the films reflect their times

Note: We expect to publish all papers selected for delivery at the conference; some papers may be selected for publication and not for delivery. Persons submitting papers are invited to attend the conference, but attendance is not mandatory for acceptance of a paper.

Website: General information only on www.bakerstreetjournal.com
Contact name: Leslie S. Klinger
Contact E-mail: mail@lesliesklinger.com
Contact Phone Number: 310-475-1444

CFP: Shared Visions: Art, Theatre and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century (11/15/2011; 2/11/2012)

Shared Visions: 

Art, Theatre and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century

Saturday 11^th February 2012, 10am to 6pm

CFP Deadline: 15 November 2011

School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies, Millburn House, Warwick University

This one-day conference, held in conjunction with Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, will explore the connections between art, theatre, and visual culture in the nineteenth century. During this period, the ‘art of seeing’ challenged the traditional dominance of the written word. Vision, previously denigrated as deceptive, became considered as a universal language, accessible to all, and more authentic than text. Popular theatre, especially melodrama, led the way in exploring the possibilities of the new visuality. We invite papers that explore the visual culture of theatre and exchanges between theatre and the visual arts. We are particularly interested in contributions which explore the following topics:

• Theatre as visual culture
• The relationship between word and image
• Theatrical illustration
• Theatrical portraiture
• Audiences and reception of art/theatre/visual culture
• Posters/playbills
• Visual technology: panoramas; dioramas; phantasmagorias; magic lanterns
• Stage spectacle: set design, scene painting, lighting, special effects, costume
• Stage pictorialism/stage tableaux/realization
• Local colour
• Illusion
• Authenticity
• Theatricality
• Attitude and gesture
• Theatre architecture
• Caricature
• Narrative/temporality
• History as spectacle

Please submit abstracts (500 words maximum) to patricia.smyth@nottingham.ac.uk. Papers should be no more than20 minutes long and will be followed by a panel discussion. Lunch, tea and coffee will be provided.  Conference fee: £20 (£10 for postgraduate students). For further information, please contact Patricia Smyth at the above e mail address.

Registration Open: Victorian Afterlives: Gaskell in Adaptation Colloquium (11/12/2011)

Victorian Afterlives: Gaskell in Adaptation Colloquium
Saturday, November 12, 2011  10am - 4.30pm
The Council Room, King's College London, Strand Campus

Coffee and Welcome  9.30am – 10.00 am

Panel 1: Adapting Gaskell 10am  – 11.15am

• Prof. Deborah Wynne, Chester: 'Fabric and Fluff: North and South and the Costume Drama'
• Dr Peter Garratt, Northumbria: 'Gaskell & Victoriana'

Panel 2: Mary Barton on Stage 11.15 am – 12.30 pm

• Dr Andrew Maunder, Hertfordshire: 'Recasting Mary Barton: Adapting Elizabeth Gaskell for the Victorian Stage'
• Prof. Thomas Recchio, Connecticut: 'Elizabeth Gaskell As "A Dramatic Common": Stanley Houghton's Appropriation of Mary Barton in Hindle Wakes'

LUNCH  12.30pm  - 2pm

Panel 3: Cranfordia Then and Now 2.00 pm - 3.15pm

• Brenda McKay, Birkbeck: 'Dramatising 1970s Cranford: Reconstructing History, or a Slice of Contemporary History?'
• Dr Chris Louttit, Radboud: ‘Cranford: the Sequel'

Tea 3.15pm - 3.45pm

Roundtable Discussion 3.45pm - 4.30pm

Contact  Dr Louise Lee (louise.lee@kcl.ac.uk) for more details. Registration is £12. Please send cheques to the address below and make payable to King’s College London.

Dr Louise Lee

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow
Editor, Gaskell Journal
English Department
King's College
Strand
London
WC2R 2LS

CFP: NINES Fellowships for DHSI 2012 (10/26/2011)

NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-century Electronic Scholarship http://www.nines.org) is again awarding a select number of fellowships to the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (http://www.dhsi.org) at the University of Victoria.  We are particularly invested in encouraging the development of high-quality digital scholarly projects in nineteenth-century studies.

The Digital Humanities Summer Institute provides an ideal environment for discussing and learning about new computing technologies and how they are influencing teaching, research, dissemination, and
preservation in different disciplines.

As a sponsor for the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) 2012, NINES is offering five tuition-free slots to scholars of nineteenth-century literature and culture interested in the digital humanities. Tuition at DHSI usually costs $950 (student rate $500).

Anticipated course offerings for this year’s workshop (June 4-8) include:

• Text Encoding Fundamentals and Their Application
• Digitization Fundamentals and Their Application
• Introduction to XSLT for Digital Humanists
• Multimedia: Design for Visual, Auditory, and Interactive Electronic Environments
• Geographical Information Systems in the Digital Humanities
• Physical Computing and Desktop Fabrication for Humanists
• Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities
• Creating Digital Humanities Projects for the Mobile Environment
• Designing RESTful APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)
• Digital Humanities Databases
• Augmented Reality: An Introduction
• Issues in Large Project Planning and Management
• Out-of-the-Box Text Analysis for the Digital Humanities
• Digital Editions

More information about these courses, and the Summer Institute itself, can be found at the DHSI website (http://www.dhsi.org).

To Apply:
Send a 1-2 page description of your research interests, their relationship to digital technologies and your reasons for wanting to attend the DHSI summer school to workshops@nines.org by October 26, 2011.